The Pity of War: Explaining World War IFrom a bestselling historian, a daringly revisionist history of World War I The Pity of War makes a simple and provocative argument: the human atrocity known as the Great War was entirely England's fault. According to Niall Ferguson, England entered into war based on naive assumptions of German aims, thereby transforming a Continental conflict into a world war, which it then badly mishandled, necessitating American involvement. The war was not inevitable, Ferguson argues, but rather was the result of the mistaken decisions of individuals who would later claim to have been in the grip of huge impersonal forces. That the war was wicked, horrific, and inhuman is memorialized in part by the poetry of men like Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, but also by cold statistics. Indeed, more British soldiers were killed in the first day of the Battle of the Somme than Americans in the Vietnam War. And yet, as Ferguson writes, while the war itself was a disastrous folly, the great majority of men who fought it did so with little reluctance and with some enthusiasm. For anyone wanting to understand why wars are fought, why men are willing to fight them and why the world is as it is today, there is no sharper or more stimulating guide than Niall Ferguson's The Pity of War. |
Contents
The Myths of Militarism | 1 |
Empires Ententes and Edwardian Appeasement | 31 |
Britains War of Illusions | 56 |
Arms and Men | 82 |
Public Finance and National Security | 105 |
The Last Days of Mankind 28 June4 August 1914 | 143 |
The August Days The Myth of War Enthusiasm | 174 |
The Press Gang | 208 |
Maximum Slaughter at Minimum Expense War Finance | 314 |
The Death Instinct Why Men Fought | 335 |
The Captors Dilemma | 363 |
How not to Pay for the War | 391 |
Alternatives to Armageddon | 429 |
Notes | 459 |
Bibliography | 513 |
| 538 | |
Economic Capability The Advantage Squandered | 244 |
Strategy Tactics and the Net Body Count | 278 |
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A. J. P. Taylor Albert Ballin Albertini Allied American Anglo-German argued argument arms Asquith attack August Austria Austria-Hungary battle Belgian Belgium Berlin Bethmann bonds Britain British budget capital casualties cent Central Powers collapse crisis death debt defence diplomatic economic Empire End of Isolation enemy England Entente Europe European expenditure fact fighting figures Finanzpolitik force foreign France France and Russia French Geiss German army Germany's Grey Grey's historians Hynes Ibid Imperial income increase industrial inflation Italy John Maynard Keynes Joseph Chamberlain July Jünger Kaiser Keynes killed labour later less Liberal Lloyd George Ludendorff Max Warburg memoirs military million mobilization Moltke Monger Morale naval navy neutrality Northcliffe officers peace political politicians pre-war prisoners propaganda Public Finance Reich reparations Russia Serbia social soldiers Storm of Steel strategy surrender T. E. Lawrence trade troops victory Warburg wartime Western Front Wilson World wounded